The Dalai Lama's Moral Compass: Clarity without malice, resistance without rage

Time of India

16 hours ago

It is impossible to turn away. Violence in
Ukraine
and genocide in Gaza are coarsening our sensibilities, continue to dull our capacity for shock, and steadily erode our sense of agency.
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How do we carry the weight of such pain? How do we face cruelty without being broken by it? I remember my first visit to
Dharamsala
in 1983, where the
has lived in exile for more than six decades. What moved me most were the prayer mats laid out by the monks. Embroidered in
Tibetan
, they read: "Pray for the Chinese." Their daily prayers concluded with a simple wish: "May the veils of ignorance rise from the Chinese so that they may not suffer the consequences of their actions."
The Dalai Lama had asked his community to make a profound distinction between the acts of the Chinese government that orchestrated the genocide in
and the ordinary Chinese people, many of whom were either unaware or powerless to resist coercion. The temptation is to look away. To shut down, to feel helpless. But what i have learned from the Dalai Lama is the opposite: do not look away. Look more deeply.
Look into the heart of suffering, the roots of violence, the flickering possibility of compassion, even in devastation.
He knows its contours all too well. In 1959, he fled Tibet after the Chinese invasion. He chose a harder path: moral clarity without malice, resistance without rage.
The Dalai Lama meets suffering—not with despair but with stillness. Again and again, he reminds us that the true enemy is not the person but the ignorance, hatred, and delusion within. This is not a denial of responsibility. It is a more profound ethical reckoning.
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We are called to oppose injustice without mirroring it. What we do—and the mind with which we do it—shapes the world we create.
The Dalai Lama has been unequivocal: terrorism is wrong. It violates the core tenets of every major faith. Yet he cautions that in confronting violence, we must not reproduce its causes. Even those who commit atrocities, he insists, are not beyond the reach of compassion.
He does not preach inaction.
He calls for a different kind of action—one anchored in secular ethics, rooted not in doctrine but in our shared human experience: our ability to feel pain, to seek connection, to desire safety.
Governments are often indifferent. Institutions falter. Outrage flickers, then fades. In this vacuum, moral leadership is conspicuously absent. 'World peace,' he says, 'must grow from inner peace.' This is not a retreat.
It is redirection—towards inner disarmament, the dismantling of emotional ordnance we carry: anger, prejudice, fear.
Violence today is increasingly impersonal. Executed through drones, decisions, and data, it renders victims into numbers. Suffering becomes abstract. But pain is always personal. There's often a hush in the room when these images flash across the screen—a stunned silence, quickly followed by the helpless gesture of switching it off.
The further we are from the suffering of others, the easier it becomes to justify or ignore it.
This is why the Dalai Lama returns, again and again, to the principle of interdependence. But his worldview goes deeper. He sees interdependence, impermanence, causality, and compassion as inseparable principles illuminating both reality's nature and the path through human suffering. Recognising our fundamental interdependence, how all phenomena arise through interconnected causes and conditions—naturally cultivates compassion, as we begin to understand that individual wellbeing is inseparable from collective flourishing.
The truth of impermanence, far from being a source of despair, becomes a foundation for hope and ethical action: suffering is not permanent, positive change is always possible, and our actions matter because they set ripples of causality far beyond ourselves. This perspective transforms personal pain into a gateway to universal compassion. When we understand the impermanent and interdependent nature of all things, the illusion of separation dissolves.
What emerges is the possibility of equanimity, of peace rooted in our shared vulnerability—and potential for awakening.
Violence is never isolated. Injury always ripples outward. Hatred is a boomerang. It returns. In every war, it is the innocent who suffer most. We know this. And still, we look away. The casualties are not generals or statesmen, but children in rubble, women fleeing minefields, elders left behind.
From Iraq to Syria, from Afghanistan to Ukraine, the pattern repeats. Power strikes. People bleed. We spend over $2.4 trillion annually on arms. A tenth of that could educate every child, bring clean water to every village, and provide basic healthcare. But we persist in building arsenals. 'We are over-armed and under-educated,' the Dalai Lama warns.
What, then, can we do? When justice fails and vengeance tempts, the Dalai Lama reframes the question: what is this moment asking of us, morally? The true battle, he says, is not only against injustice, but against what we risk becoming as we respond.
Are we acting from sorrow or from rage? From compassion or fear?
Violence may silence, but it does not heal. It may punish, but it cannot reconcile. And so we turn to our grief, our helplessness, our rage—and honour them. We do not allow them to harden us. Nor do we let them fester. Instead, we let them deepen our empathy—and renew our
solidarity
. This is how we stay human when the world forgets how.
The Dalai Lama reminds us that when we witness suffering and respond—even with a small gesture—we keep our hearts alive.
That gesture need not be heroic. It could be a refusal to echo hate. A shift in tone. A quiet pause. Even a whisper of dignity, where cruelty is expected, can be a profound act of resistance.
He acknowledges that violence may, at times, be necessary—to protect, to prevent greater harm. But even then, intention matters. Are we acting from wisdom or wrath? From responsibility or revenge? These questions are seldom asked in public life.
But they may be the only ones that matter.
And what of us, the witnesses who watch and ache? We begin by noticing our own pain. Not to wallow in it. But to recognise it as a sign that we still care. That we are not numb. That we still belong to one another.
As the Dalai Lama says, "Do not let the suffering you see make you bitter. Let it make you more human." That may be the hardest task of all: to remain open-hearted in a time of collapse, to feel sorrow without being swept away, to feel anger without dehumanising, to grieve and still protect the dignity of others—and ourselves.
Critics often scoff: Has nonviolence restored Tibet? Has compassion ended war? They measure success only in victories won and borders drawn. But they miss the deeper triumph: that Tibet's moral voice has not been drowned in bitterness. That the Dalai Lama remains a symbol of hope, not hate.
In an age of cynicism, he offers moral clarity. When the images become too much to bear, when violence overwhelms, he offers no false consolation.
Only this: even amidst the worst, we still have the power to remain fully human.
Authored by: Rajiv Mehrotra
The writer is the managing trustee, The
Foundation of HH
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